Handbook for an American Revolutionary Matthew-Lee Erlbach portraying one of several characters in his solo show at the Gym at Judson in Greenwich Village.Credit
Russ Rowland

For a solo performer, a sure way to get hearty applause is to pack your show with lots of characters representing multiple accents, races and nationalities. Plenty of theatergoers are dazzled by an actor’s ability to be a Hispanic migrant worker one minute, a Southern white supremacist the next. But mere identity switching, while attention-getting, ultimately makes for a shallow experience; the higher art is in having this variety of voices say something memorable.

Matthew-Lee Erlbach’s “Handbook for an American Revolutionary,” at the Gym at Judson, is only partly successful at giving depth to the dozen characters portrayed. The best parts of Mr. Erlbach’s tour of the United States are revelatory and surprising, none more so than an insightful stretch in which he alternates between a slick solar-power lobbyist and a West Virginia landowner trying to stand up to Big Coal.

Other characters we meet in this compact show, however — though all are beautifully rendered — say largely what we expect them to say. The migrant worker sticks to the established outline of aspiration and hard work that we’ve come to expect when a character with that particular accent starts talking about harvesting fruit. The white supremacist spouts the usual vitriol, not really illuminating anything so much as confirming a stereotype: If it speaks with a Southern accent, it must be a racist.

Mr. Erlbach draws on actual people and events to construct his characters, but the American portrait he creates doesn’t feel representative as much as it feels like a sampling of extremes. There is no “middle” to this America, just smatterings of disenfranchisement and hate with occasional hope thrown in. It’s impressive to watch, but expect only a few of the people you meet courtesy of Mr. Erlbach’s fine incarnations to go home lodged in your brain.